2011 Hugo Finalists

The Hugo Awards have been given since 1953, and every year since 1955, by the annual World Science Fiction Convention (the “Worldcon”). The first Worldcon occurred in New York City in 1939, and Worldcons have been held annually since then except during World War II. This year’s Worldcon, Renovation, will be held in Reno, Nevada from August 17 through 21, 2011; its Guests of Honor will be Ellen Asher, Charles N. Brown (in memoriam), Tim Powers, and Boris Vallejo.

Hugo Award finalists are selected by members of the previous Worldcon and of the upcoming one; winners are selected by members of the upcoming one. All Attending, Young Adult, and Supporting members of Renovation can vote on the final ballot. For more information about voting in the Hugo Awards, or becoming a member of Renovation, please click here.

The winners will be announced Saturday, August 20th, 2011, during the Hugo Awards Ceremony at Renovation in Reno, Nevada.

Best Novelette“Eight Miles” by Sean McMullen (Analog, September 2010)“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s, July 2010)“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s, December 2010)“That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” by Eric James Stone (Analog, September 2010)

Best Short Story“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010)“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010)“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New WriterAward for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2009 or 2010, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).
Saladin Ahmed
Lauren Beukes
Larry Correia
Lev Grossman
Dan WellsNote: All Campbell finalists are in their 2nd year of eligibility.

Looks to be a pretty weak shortlist. I appear to be in the minority on my dislike for Blackout/All Clear, and am in the distinct minority for my objections to Feed. I retain objections, though, and don't see these works as at all representative of the best of the year, in ambition, writing, basic quality control or in using tools of the genre. Willis' work is profoundly boring and stylistically framed. Feed banks heavily on the thoroughness of its imaginative concept while failing to think through its setting effectively and indulging in the worst kind of political strawmen and idiot plotting. One can read the novel in a more effective sense in, as the recent Strange Horizons review has it, as a sharp media satire, and that takes a little of the bitter taste from my mouth. Not all of it, though, as I'm not at all convinced that was the book Grant wrote. Cryoburn isn't as bad as either, but is in some ways even more disappointing: a strong writer returning to a familiar setting and doing about the minimum effort to string together a conventional plot. At least Feed and Blackout/All Clear were clearly significant investments in their author's time, for all that I felt it was misapplied they were labors of enthusiasm. Cryoburn suggests quite strongly that Bujold was bored and making little effort, re-running familiar scenarios into predictable plot that doesn't challenge or grow the characters. The politics are simplistic, the only powerful moments come in a coda unconnected to the main story, and the whole thing looks very tossed together. It's very dispiriting that readers will be so eager to embrace a familiar author and setting that they'd give nominee status to such a weak return.

The Dervish House is magnificent and hopefully it can win, but nothing else on the shortlist comes close to meriting its place. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is pretty good and does approach some themes in an interesting manner, but it fails to follow through on the implications enough. And while there's no Sawyer here, the result remains a shortlist that's 60% mediocre. Much weaker than last year's novel list, and almost as bad as 2009's. Although there at least is something to be said that the list isn't as familiar, with a number of new authors and returning ones at least not nominated recently. I'll also note that it's an 80% female shortlist, for what I'm guessing may be the highest ratio. It's a pity that on the level of content the voters seem to have generally embraced a conentional style over substance, with a focus on familiar World War Two moralizing, a regurgitation of the Vorkosigan setting and yet another exploration of the zombie phenomenon. In part I'm reacting to the disconnect from my own top preferences and votes, but beyond that I do feel there are a number of objective problems with this as a set of best science fiction and fantasy of the year. At least there is Dervish House, and to a lesser extent the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.

I hope that "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" wins the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form award. Of course, I don't know if this is going to happen, what with there being an Oscar-winning short film and three Doctor Who episodes nominated. But this is awesome that there's a relatively short novelty music video nominated next to the rest of the big, serious entries. That's pretty cool– although with the recent rush of Who fandom on this side of the Atlantic, it may have about the same chance as "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar" would have at the Grammys.

Oh, and Randall Munroe being nominated for Best Fan Artist– awesome. I've been a fan of xkcd since before it became insanely popular, so I'm a little biased here.

Also, when is there going to be a Hugo Award for Best Video Game? It can't be long now…

Also, when is there going to be a Hugo Award for Best Video Game? It can't be long now…

The 2006 Worldcon trialed such a category using their authority to create a one-shot Hugo Award category. They received so few nominations that they dropped it. Conventional thinking is that insufficient time has passed to try it again. However, the current wording of the Best Related Work category is so broad that if enough people nominated a video game in that category, it is likely that it would stand. So if you think there are video games out there worthy of a Hugo Award, try nominating them in Best Related Work.

And the three Doctor Who nominees weren't even the best episodes to air last year! It would have been posisble to come up with three or even five great episodes just from Doctor Who, but only Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang really qualifies. Vincent and the Doctor was off-balance, to my tastes, and A Christmas Carol pure fluff.

Really surprised by the exclusion of the Sawyer yearly nomination - but I had pegged four of the five nominees before they announced them. Missed only the Feed nomination - and have not even read it. But, I have to agree with Raskolnikov about Cryoburn - easily a lesser novel in the Vorkosigan canon. I agree with him about TheDervish House, as well. It was the best novel of the year and I would include it as one of the best of the last 10 years. The other two are quite enjoyable if not up to The Dervish House but worthy nominees, I think (the Willis would have been a real favorite for a close second place if it had been cut by 100 pages or so).

They picked a great crop of novellas - but there were so many good ones this year that I think a lot were unfortunately missed.

Novelete and short story choices were atrocious in my opinion with "The Jaguar House, In Shadow" and "The Things" as the only worthy nominees.

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